Monday, 26 January 2015

The back says:Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is
utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother’s
wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice,
and her six-year-old male cousin — not to mention her own unbridled imagination
— Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go,
uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of
something larger, more accepting than herself.

I say: When I finished reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter I asked myself if I liked McCullers and couldn’t
answer. Having finished this I don’t think I do, and the two main reasons are
that the prose is so unpredictable; some passages are magical and others are
just meh; and all the characters are more or less the same in all of her
novels.

This is a coming of age
novel about Frankie who is obsessed with her brother’s wedding and the future
she plans with the newlywed couple. She is childish and stubborn to the point
of being a brat, and I really didn’t like her at all. Add to this the fact that
I found everyone else around Frankie more interesting, this became a rather
tedious read. Of course, most pre-teens are self-obsessed and think little of
the world unless it’s in direct relation to themselves, but with Frankie this
was a tad too much.

She was just a tad too much.

My feelings about this novel
is in part my own fault because I read this directly after finishing The Heart
is a Lonely Hunter, and because there are such similarities between the two
young girls, Frankie felt like a bad copy of Mick Kelly. Because of my
inability to separate the two – and all the other similar characters; the
father, the little brother, the maid - I appear to have missed some of the deeper issues addressed.

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

The back says:At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant
for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one
yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes
insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine
(and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully
attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with
a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting,
unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the
mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely
personal search for beauty.I say: I think I fell in some kind
of love with John Singer – same as everyone else – without really understanding
why; which was the whole point, I suppose. Finding someone who will listen to
any and everything you have to say without seeming to judge will do that to a
person. Especially if they always make time for, and are exceptionally kind to
you.

Apart from John, there are four main characters whose lives we follow in
turns; all connected through John, though not exclusively so. There is tomboy
Mick, who dreams of being a musician and whose descriptions of falling in love
with music were very vivid and sometimes poetic; Biff, who owns a diner and
quietly observes his customers while not giving away too much of his own life;
Jake, an out of town alcoholic who decides to stick around in town because he
doesn’t really have anywhere else to go; and Dr Copeland, an idealistic black
doctor who wants more from and of his children and the black community.

It was interesting to see the way their lives brushed against each other
and how each of them saw themselves and viewed the others. None of them could
really understand why the others visited John, and it is therein the beauty of
the novel lies. Obviously, as the title suggests, they are all lonely in their
own way and searching for something they are convinced John can help them find
or attain, neither of them ever really stopping to deeply question what John
wants. They are all selfish in their need, while John is guarded of his. He
never really converses with any of his visitors and saves up money to visit his
former housemate whom he tells all. Unfortunately the former housemate has gone
insane and doesn’t respond to anything John tells him, so it becomes a form or
role reversal.

Although the prose sways from poetic to confusingly bland, I found myself
wondering if I like McCullers or if it’s just her characters and their struggle
I like. It is hard to pinpoint, but there was something lacking in the prose,
and that is the main reason this doesn’t get a full 5/5.

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

The back says:Beautiful Lady Brenda Last lives at Hetton Abbey, a Gothic monstrosity
that is the pride and joy of her devoted husband Tony. Bored and restless after
seven years of marriage, she drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite
John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the glamorous Belgravia set. But, instesd of
her divorce bringing her happiness, Brenda feels increasingly isolated. Tony,
meanwhile, in his desire to escape their broken marriage, is propelled towards
a different fate entirely...

I say: This started out very
intriguing and funny with Mrs Beaver and her son John at the centre of the
plot. Then we are introduced to Brenda, her husband Tony, and their various
friends as the plot thickens. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any of them very
interesting and once Brenda leaves Tony it all quickly goes downhill.

I was disappointed.

It almost feels like two separate novels; before Brenda walks away there’s
a sort of airiness to the prose and the people, which later turns bleak and
rather dreary. Usually I love sombre novels, but because Tony’s departure meant
such a vast change, I never got into it.

The same can be said for the ending.

Abrupt and sort of meh (although what happened to Tony was unexpectedly amazing
chilling).

What I did enjoy was Waugh’s prose in the first part of the novel. There
was wit and silliness mixed with social commentary, and even though I didn’t
care for most of the characters they did seem believable. There were a few
things that happened merely for the sake of moving the story forward, but they
weren’t too intrusive, albeit obvious.

The back says:The intrepid Professor Liedenbrock embarks upon the strangest expedition
of the nineteenth century: a journey down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the
Earth's very core. In his quest to penetrate the planet's primordial secrets,
the geologist - together with his quaking nephew Axel and their devoted guide,
Hans - discovers an astonishing subterranean menagerie of prehistoric
proportions. Verne's imaginative tale is at once the ultimate science fiction
adventure and a reflection on the perfectibility of human understanding and the
psychology of the questor.

I say:Wow.

I have waited far too long to read this, and yet did not wait long enough
because it bored me to tears. There are no words to describe how desperately I wanted
this to come to an end as soon as they had descended down the volcano, which is
when I surprisingly lost all interest. Too many detailed descriptions of the
different types of stones and whatever scientist of the age had researched
before. And the sad thing is that it started out very captivating with Alex
solving the puzzle of the manuscript and them setting off to Iceland.

Sigh.

I just could not muster up enough interest in the story because the prose
was so distractingly awful. Perhaps it is this particular translation, perhaps I
do not care for Verne... Who knows?

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

The back says:Her marriage is on the rocks. Her flight is overbooked. Now the guy in the window seat wants to talk about God - the perfect start to the perfect day! But for Mattie Cominsky, events are about to take an unexpected turn. An encounter with a perfect stranger re-routes her on a different kind of journey.

I say: This is the most ridiculous
religious drivel I may have ever read in my life. There is absolutely no
redeeming quality anywhere; not the inane and predictable plotline, not the
infantile language and none of the naïve characters.

I honestly felt insulted while
reading this.

1/5 because that is the lowest score I have, but I would much rather give
it 0/5.

Monday, 5 January 2015

The back says:In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before,
eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital.
She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a
psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele -- Sylvia Plath,
Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles -- as for its progressive methods
of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.

Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing
vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant
evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically
shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and
specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and
recovery.

I say: I often hear about books that
I tell myself I’m going to read, and then somehow forget about them for a few
months/years/decades and when I finally pick them up - full of anticipation –
it can only go one of three ways; either I fall in irrevocable love; in irrevocable
hate; or in irrevocable nothing with it.

I fell in nothing with this.

Just pure meh.

This is a memoir, which always makes me a bit wary with my reviews, but to
be completely honest I found nothing little about Keyser interesting –
all the people she described in the mental ward were more interesting than she
was. Perhaps this was a manifestation of her illness, I don’t know, but she
makes it hard to even argue that point since she spends the last few chapters
arguing that she was never mentally ill at all (she was diagnosed with
borderline personality disorder).

I can’t even know what to say...

It feels cruel to say that it wasn’t worth the time it took to read, but
that’s how I honestly feel. Especially the last few chapters felt extra
superfluous; like she has something to prove and I wonder if anyone had cared
if it weren’t for the fact that she stayed in McLean Hospital where so many famous people
had stayed before her!?